


In Which There is Pie

by dozmuffinxc



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pie, food pr0n, no sex just pie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4773926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dozmuffinxc/pseuds/dozmuffinxc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, the only way to appease a frustrated, injured Winchester is with pie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which There is Pie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohreallyjenn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohreallyjenn/gifts).



“Son of a BITCH!”

Castiel flinched. The sound of Dean slamming his empty beer bottle against the wooden table top was definitely not a good sign, nor was the string of expletives currently flowing from his lips. The angel took a calming breath, steeled himself for the task, and approached the table.

“Dean…”

“I swear to God, Cas,” Dean growled, his hands clenched into fists that fairly vibrated at his side, “unless you have a solution to this freakin’ body snatcher problem, the only words out of your lips better be ‘I’m going for pie.’”

“Dean, I hardly see how your unhealthy obsession with fruit-filled pastries is relevant right now.”

For a moment, Castiel was sure that Dean was about to punch him. While this would have been unfortunate, it wasn’t the worst possible outcome. He and Dean had been cooped up in Bobby’s living room for hours with no word from Sam, and the only thing keeping him from grabbing a shotgun and bursting out the door literally guns blazing was the heavy, plaster cast that was currently engulfing his leg from his knee down to the floor.

Luckily for him, Dean seemed to reconsider throttling his only link to the outside world and instead eased himself back into his chair and raked his fingers through his hair.

“I know Sam asked you here to babysit,” Dean said, eyes screwed shut in agitation, “and that is totally going to get his ass kicked when he gets back from this hunt. The least you could have done is brought some decent food and a six pack!”

Dean opened his eyes to silence and an empty room. Cursing loudly, he threw his empty beer bottle into the cold fireplace and resigned himself to an evening alone.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Fourteen painstaking minutes later, Dean was startled out of a dark reverie wherein he was contemplating ripping his cast off with his own teeth by the sound of a thud on the kitchen table. Reflexively reaching for his knife, he was startled to see Castiel depositing three plastic bags onto a mysteriously-clean countertop.

“I thought you bailed,” Dean said, pulling himself out of his chair and hobbling loudly into the kitchen.

Castiel tilted his head, bemused. “You said that you wanted pie.”

“Yeah, I did,” Dean conceded, “but Cas: none of that looks like a pie to me.”

“The bakery at the supermarket was out of pie,” Castiel said, looking grim.

Dean peered at the plastic shopping bags skeptically.

“Okay… so you, what, bought out the baked goods section?”

“The woman at the bakery said that this was all we needed. She seemed quite certain that, if we combined these items correctly, there would be a pie.”

Dean noticed the doubt in Castiel’s voice, and a smile teased the corners of his mouth.

“What,” he said, leaning against the kitchen counter and lifting his eyebrows in mock incredulity, “you’ve never baked before? I would’ve thought your people were all about angel food cake and fluffy white whipped cream clouds.”

“Baking is hardly a requisite skill for a soldier of the Lord, Dean,” Castiel replied gruffly, his cheeks coloring slightly.

“All right, all right,” Dean said, stifling a laugh at the angel’s obvious discomfort. “Anybody can follow a recipe. Grab my cell-phone, will ya, Cas?”

Castiel did as he was bid, holding the device delicately as he delivered it into Dean’s outstretched hand.

For all Castiel had become familiar with this era’s human technology, he did not trust cell phones. As a means of communication, they were baffling: with the ability to call another person literally on the opposite side of the world, most humans would rather text each other incomprehensible images of exploding heads and smiling piles of excrement. Dean, he noted, rarely texted, and Castiel was greatly appreciative.

Dean grabbed his phone and started tapping rapidly on the keyboard, tongue poking out slightly from between his teeth.

“Come on, Cas,” he said after a few moments of awkward silence during which Castiel contemplated a mote of dust on the shoulder of Dean’s jean jacket, “make yourself useful.”

At a loss as to what humans were supposed to do in a kitchen, Castiel shuffled over to the counter and began unpacking the groceries he had purchased. In retrospect, listening to the advice of a strange woman with claims of culinary prowess might not have been the best idea, but Dean seemed surprisingly comfortable with the idea of baking for someone who Castiel had never seen eat anything besides take-out.

“All right,” Dean said, dropping his phone indelicately on the kitchen counter and cracking his knuckles soundly, “if we’re going to have pie before midnight, we’d better get started. Can you preheat the oven to 350?”

The look of consternation on Castiel’s face made Dean snicker.

“Jeez, Cas, didn’t they teach you anything in angel school?”

Castiel was about to reply that there was no such thing as “angel school” when Dean cut him off with a roll of his eyes and an upheld hand.

“It’s fine, I’ll do it,” Dean said, hauling himself laboriously towards the oven with a lopsided gait that Castiel found strangely endearing. “Why don’t you… I don’t know, start cutting up those pecans? I know you know how to handle a knife, at least.”

Castiel learned quickly not to hold his knife too close to his fingers and that it was not okay to chop nuts on a bare kitchen counter and for a while, they worked in companionable silence. Every few minutes, he looked up from his cutting board and watched Dean work, his shoulders hunched slightly over the hot stove as he stirred a mixture of corn syrup, sugar, eggs, and butter and muttered under his breath about “consistency” and “texture.” It wasn’t until he realized Dean was telling him to bring the pecans to the stove that he realized he had been standing quite still for some time, staring intently at the nape of the other man’s neck and the light sheen of sweat that stood out from the heat and the steam.

“I would not have taken you for a baker,” Castiel said as he stood at Dean’s side, watching him dump the chopped pecans unceremoniously into the viscous concoction on the stove. Indeed, it seemed that Dean was more than comfortable maneuvering around a kitchen. “It’s remarkable.”

“Yeah, well, I had to do a lot of the cooking when Sam and I were growing up.” Dean didn’t meet Castiel’s eyes, but he seemed to stand a little straighter and his grip on the wooden spoon in his hand became just a little bit tighter. “There were a couple of birthdays when Dad… well, he couldn’t be there, so I made Sammy’s cake. Dad still had one of Mom’s favorite cookbooks – it had her notes in it and everything – and when it came out of the oven, it wasn’t even that bad. We ate that thing for a week.”

Dean chuckled as he told the story, but Castiel found little humor in the thought of two small boys subsisting on cake for weeks because their father was too obsessed with his revenge mission to come home for his son’s birthday. However, he felt it was better not to comment on the dark thoughts he harbored concerning John Winchester. Instead, he fetched the pie crust and set it near Dean’s elbow for easy access.

“All right,” Dean said at last, carefully pouring the last of the pecan-studded syrup into the pie crust, “that goes in the oven for an hour. Think you can manage that?”

Castiel nodded gravely and lifted the pie with great care, carrying it to the oven and setting it gently on the center rack. When he looked up from his task, Dean was watching him with an unreadable expression on his face.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Castiel had spent the next 60 minutes wandering between the kitchen and the living room, sneaking glances of the baking pie until Dean finally yelled at him that it would never cook right if he kept opening the oven. Watching Dean deposit the steaming pie onto a battered, iron trivet, he had felt a strange sense of accomplishment and had been ready to cut into the confection right then until Dean told him that he was crazy, that he’d burn his tongue, and that the pie needed to cool for at least an hour. Even for an angel with divine patience, Castiel found himself brooding on the inefficiency of human technology.

Four episodes of “Doctor Sexy” and two beers (both Dean’s) later, the pie was declared ready.

“And now we eat it?” Castiel asked, his gaze flicking between the pie and Dean’s wide, appreciative grin.

“Yeah, Cas,” Dean said, passing him a plate and fork, “now we eat it.”

The pie was a delightful paradox of crisp pecans and gooey filling, and perhaps it was due to his vessel’s peculiar sweet tooth, but Castiel had never tasted anything so delicious.


End file.
